The End of Us
by Nightfoot
Summary: Yuri and Flynn slip away from the Quarantine Zone to have a bit of adventure, but it ends in tragedy. Set in the world of The Last of Us.


This story was commissioned by tumblr user Commandon-t! It's loosely based on the Left Behind prequel, and set roughly five years before the game. Considering what it's based on, it should be no surprise it carries a warning for major character death.

* * *

 **The End of Us**

After so many years of knowing each other, Yuri was almost offended when he said hello and Flynn responded by drawing a gun on him. Almost. Considering he hadn't seen Flynn in three months, chose to make his greeting while emerging from a dark alley, and Flynn was walking home at twilight with fresh supplies of sought-after canned food, Flynn's reaction of letting his food clatter to the ground and spin to the alley with his pistol ready to shoot.

"Whoa, whoa!" Yuri held his hands up and came closer so the dying light could illuminate him. "I know we didn't say goodbye on the best of terms, but don't you think that's a little overkill?"

If anything, discovering his assailant was Yuri just made Flynn's expression angrier. He didn't lower the gun. "I ought to shoot you right now."

"Aw, come on, making a soldier wet his pants isn't a capital offence."

"Desertion is."

The gun barrel aimed at his chest didn't exactly put Yuri in a calm mood, but he was positive Flynn wouldn't actually shoot him. Well… reasonably sure. "Exactly, which is why I had to startle you out here rather than knock on your door in the barracks. Sorry I scared you, now can we just talk?"

Flynn hesitated, but after a few seconds of glaring, he dropped his weapon and his fury. "What do you want?" He slid the gun back into his thigh holster and crouched to pick up his dropped rations.

Yuri grabbed a can of peas that had rolled near his foot. "Can I start with, 'it's nice to see you again, too'?"

"What do you expect me to say, Yuri? You deserted the military. And me."

"Flynn…." He shook his head with a sigh. "You understand, don't you? Executing those supposed people…."

"They weren't innocent. They were Fireflies." But Flynn didn't meet Yuri's eyes as he said this.

"So the higher-ups told us. They could just as well have been petty thieves brought in for a demonstration. You're really going to hold it against me for ditching the army after that?"

Flynn's mouth tightened and he still refused to meet Yuri's eyes. Good; at least he knew Yuri was right.

"I wanted you to come with me when I left. Come on…." Yuri held out his can. "Can't we have peas between us?"

Flynn stared at the can for a few seconds and then snorted. He grabbed it and said, "I'm still mad at you for taking up smuggling."

"A man's gotta make a living." Yuri fell into step beside Flynn. "And I did miss you, by the way."

"Hmph."

"You missed me too, right?"

Flynn spent far too long pondering this. "It's certainly been quieter since you left…."

"Flynn! You wound me!"

Flynn glanced to the aside and finally directed a smile at him. "I might have missed you a little bit."

"Good. So… you'll go on a little adventure with me tonight, right?"

"Hold on, what?"

Yuri hefted the shoulder of his backpack. "I found something cool outside the perimeter. I thought you and I could have a little fun exploring."

Flynn stopped and turned to Yuri. "We can't go beyond the perimeter. It's illegal, and it's dangerous."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Trust you to put those things in that order. Where else are we going to spend time together now? A soldier isn't welcome down by the wharf, and your military pals will shoot me in your part of town." Yuri rested his hand on Flynn's around the pile of cans. He felt Flynn's muscles contract slightly from the sudden touch, and rubbed his thumb on the top of Flynn's hand. "Let's have some fun, like we used to before we joined the military. Who knows when we'll get a chance to see each other again?"

Flynn winced and said, "I'm going to regret this, but ok."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Flynn had dropped off his food and was now slinking to the street corner, looking over his shoulder every few seconds.

Yuri had to laugh. "No one is following you, Flynn."

"Just… want to make sure." He wore his military clothes and gun, but didn't have the body armour or helmet.

Yuri jerked his head and led Flynn away. He couldn't have looked less military with his jeans and t-shirt, with his own handgun on his belt. Yuri had spent the past three months establishing himself in the smuggling community. It had taken a while to gain people's trust as a former soldier, but once they trusted he wasn't a plant trying to lure them out, other smugglers had come to appreciate his intimate knowledge of military schedules and regulations. Through them, he'd learned the locations of tunnels under the walls.

It was through one of these tunnels that Yuri led Flynn. Their destination was only a few blocks from the wall, so when they emerged from the tunnel in the shell of a building, it was just a quick dash across a stretch of cracked road to the cube-like building Yuri had explored on his last smuggling expedition.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" Flynn asked as they stepped into the expansive room beyond the shattered glass doors. "An empty train station?"

"It gets better." Yuri flicked on his flashlight and picked his way through the rubble. Trash, crumbled concrete, and vegetation littered the floor of what must have once been a thriving station.

After crossing the station, they reached a set of glass doors. At least, they had once been glass. Now they were rusty frames with a space in the middle, but that didn't stop Yuri from opening one and saying, "After you, good sir."

Through the doors, they walked up the rusty remains of an old escalator. "You know, I've been thinking," Yuri said. "It's not the Infected that scare me the most. As awful as they are, they're pretty predictable. Humans are much more threatening to me. They can plan, and think, and take you by surprise."

"I suppose…" Flynn frowned. "Infected do have their own horror, though. Humans are unpredictable, but at least the worst they'll do is kill you. If you get bit, though…." He trailed off with a shudder and Yuri regretted bringing it up. Flynn had only been ten when his father got infected and subsequently killed his mother.

At the top of the escalator, they stepped into another open space. Yuri grabbed Flynn's hand and pulled him across the wide, curving corridor to a door. When they walked through it, Flynn sucked in his breath at the enormous arena stretching out below them. Hundreds of seats circled the concrete oval down below.

"Ta-da!" Yuri held out his arms.

The ice had long melted after the hockey rink was abandoned fifteen years ago, but rusty nets still sat on either end.

"Wow…. I haven't been in a place like this since…."

Yuri nodded. "Yeah."

"My dad used to take me to games back in Texas. We'd get hot dogs and Coke and stay out late. I'd ride on his shoulders through the sea of people."

Flynn remained motionless, lost in memory. After almost a minute, he turned and rested his forehead on Yuri's shoulder. "I forgive you for deserting."

"Huh?" The sudden affection surprised him, but didn't disappoint him.

"I don't like that you've become a smuggler… but I've lost too many people to voluntarily throw one away. It's bad enough that my last memory of my father is him turning into a monster. If you die, I want my last memory of you to be something happy, and not have any regrets."

Yuri cupped Flynn's chin and lifted his face. "Hey. I'm not going anywhere." He pressed his lips against Flynn's for a moment. "Is that happy enough for you?"

Flynn smiled feebly, wrapped his hand around the back of Yuri's head, and gave him a proper kiss. After three months apart, Yuri would have been happy if it lasted a week. When he pulled away, Flynn said, "I think it'll do. Now come on, I have to kick your ass at hockey."

They hurried down to the abandoned rink. Yuri used the chalk in his backpack to quickly draw approximations of circles and lines, then used a tennis ball he'd brought and sticks found in the locker room to actually play. Yuri hadn't seen Flynn this carefree since they were kids. They dashed up and down the concrete, careful not to trip on the cracks, laughing and shouting as the ball bounced around. It was easy to ignore the world outside the arena, and pretend they were just playing a simple game of street hockey like they had when they were little.

"It's Lowell on a breakaway!" Yuri shouted as he ran toward the goal. "The goal is wide open!"

Flynn panted as he ran beside him, racing to get in front and guard his net.

"He shoots-" Yuri smacked the tennis ball. Flynn swung around in front of the goal, but not fast enough to keep the ball from whizzing past his shoulder and hitting the decaying net. " _Gooooooooal_! " Yuri thew up his arms and jumped in the air.

A door slammed open. Yuri's heart stopped. He saw the Infected swarming into the arena and started running before the beat resumed. They leaped over the plastic wall into the benches and kept going, through the door leading to the locker rooms. Behind them was the pounding of feet and yelps of Infected racing after them.

"I knew this was a bad idea!" Flynn shouted as they sprinted along a hallway lined in white-painted brick.

"Hey, don't yell at me now! What happened to wanting your last memory of me to be positive?!" Yuri panted as he ran. Behind them, a door slammed open as the Infected made it into the hallways.

"Do you know how to get out of here?"

Yuri didn't, because the route he knew was back the way the Infected had come from, but a building this large was sure to have multiple exits. They would just have to keep running and hope to find one soon. "Ahead, I assume!"

If only they hadn't wasted their energy running around the rink. If only they hadn't lost themselves in nostalgia and forgotten to keep their voices down outside the Quarantine Zone. If only they'd never come on this reckless adventure in the first place.

They burst through a set of double doors and slammed them shut behind them. There was no lock, but a decaying wooden crate sat a few feet away. Flynn shoved this against the door just as a wave of wailing Infected slammed against it. It held, but the wood crunched and wouldn't keep them at bay for more than a minute or two. Without a word, they ran on. Around a corner, they stopped. The hallway ahead had caved in, but just in front of the rubble was the remains of a steel staircase leading up to a catwalk. Above the stars, an emergency exit sign pointed to the left.

"We have to get up there," Yuri said.

Flynn glanced back and winced at the crunch of wood. "I'll lift you up."

The lowest remaining step was about ten feet off the ground. One of them would have to give the other a boost to get up, and then that one would need to pull the other. Yuri shook his head. "You're heavier and stronger than me. It will be easier for me to push you up than pull you."

"But-"

"No time to argue." Yuri crouched and intertwined his fingers. "Go!"

He pushed up and Flynn grabbed the lip of the stairs. He had just planted his foot on Yuri's shoulder to get the last boost he needed when a crash and a yowl told Yuri the Infected were on their way. Flynn made it onto the stairs, which groaned but held his weight. On his knees, he stuck his hand down.

"Come on!"

Yuri ignored how frightened Flynn seemed when he looked behind Yuri, and how close the screeching was. He grabbed Flynn's wrist and jumped to grab the lip of the stairs with his other hand. Flynn pulled and Yuri's legs kicked the air, until they kicked a body.

"Shit!" Hands grasped Yuri's ankle and yanked down. "Get off, fucker!" Yuri twisted and kicked the Infected in the face, but it fell off only to make room for another one.

Flynn let go with one hand so he could pull out his gun. It exploded close to Yuri's ear and the ensuing deafness let him focus on the tactile. One Infected had dropped from the bullet, but another was still clawing at his waist. Flynn could do little more than keep Yuri from falling with his right hand occupied with shooting. Teeth clamped around Yuri's ankle, but the pain was blunt - it hadn't broken through his jeans. He was sure of that. He swung his leg back and felt a nose crunch beneath his heel, but then hands grasping around his waist knocked the gun from its holster. It clattered to the ground, but Yuri didn't feel like going down to get it.

"Shit." Flynn breathed and set his gun down, realizing it was just prolonging the situation. Then he thrust his arm down and grabbed Yuri's belt. He heaved and Yuri pushed against an Infected's head to get the last few feet up. He collapsed onto Flynn, breathing hard.

"Thanks."

"Any time." Flynn wriggled out further up the stairs and re-holstered his gun. "Now let's get out of here."

Yuri nodded, jumped to his feet, and dashed up the rickety stairs after Flynn. At the top, they turned left and ran along a rusty catwalk above a dark hallway. At the end was a door, which mercifully was unlocked when Flynn shoved it. Cool air hit their faces and they ran onto the roof of the arena.

It took a few minutes for the world to calm down. They shut the door and heaved a rack of metal pipes in front of it, just in case. Then they flopped onto the flat concrete of the lower roof, with the shallow dome of the main roof rising behind them. From their seat, they could easily see the spotlights of the perimeter wall a few blocks away, and the ocean beyond. It was almost peaceful.

"We made it." Flynn said after a few minutes of catching their breath.

Yuri nodded, and then pulled his leg forward. He had to check. He was sure the bite hadn't broken his jeans, let alone his skin, but everything had been happening so fast…. He rolled up the ankle and found spotless skin underneath. Thank God. "I'm sorry, Flynn." He lowered his leg and looked back to him. "We shouldn't have come."

"No, we shouldn't have." He wiped bloody knuckles on his shirt. "But… I saved your ass back there, which I think is worth at least as much as a goal, don't you… Yuri? What are you staring at?"

Yuri was suddenly certain that this entire night was a dream. It would explain why the world had suddenly shifted out of perspective, why his insides had turned into worms, why all sounds seemed to come from very far off, and why there were clear teeth marks on the back of Flynn's hand. He croaked, "Your hand."

Flynn looked down. Then he kept looking. For what might have been a week, they both stared at the blood oozing from the bite wound just past the fingers. Flynn finally whispered, "No…."

Yuri wanted to be sick. "When you reached down to pull me up…."

"I punched one, but I didn't realize… it can't have…." He scrubbed the wound on his shirt as if that would make it go away. When it didn't, he started breathing hard and fast. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck ."

"Flynn…."

"Don't 'Flynn' me! This is your fault!" He rose to his knees and faced Yuri. "If you hadn't suggested we come on this stupid adventure, then I- I wouldn't-!" He lunged forward and shoved Yuri into the concrete. The blows came down hard, but Yuri didn't try to stop them. Any pain Flynn inflicted on him now was only a fraction of the pain Flynn was enduring. Besides, Yuri deserved this. Flynn was right; this was his fault.

Flynn let out a torrent of angry words as he battered Yuri, culminating with, "Aren't you going to fight back!?"

Yuri winced from all the bruises taking root in his face. "Wasn't gonna."

Flynn stared down at him, shoulders heaving, and then twisted away. He sat on the concrete with his legs pulled up and head buried. "Sorry."

Yuri coughed as he got to his knees. "Don't be. I'm the one who's sorry. We shouldn't have come."

Flynn raised his head and rubbed his sleeve over his eyes. "I w-wanted to come. I wanted to spend t-time with you."

When Flynn began to cry, something snapped in Yuri and the world rushed back into focus. This… was real. It was really happening. Flynn was crying because he knew his life was over.

"You were wrong," Flynn mumbled. "Infected are definitely worse than humans."

Yuri had to agree. When a human shot you, you died right there. You didn't have to sit around feeling perfectly fine, but knowing your humanity was hours from trickling away. "I'm so sorry, Flynn."

Flynn pressed his forehead into his palm. "I'm not ready for my life to end. I wanted to have more time with you."

Yuri wrapped his arm around Flynn's shoulders. What he wouldn't give to slow down time and make the hours Flynn had left last years. Yuri had never thought too hard about the future, but he had always taken it for granted that Flynn would be part of it. He'd always assumed he and Flynn had years together to say everything that needed to be said, but suddenly he had to fit the rest of the lives together into a handful of moments.

"I don't want to become one of them." Flynn's voice was little more than a whisper. He didn't have to say any more. After years together, Yuri knew that nothing terrified Flynn more than becoming a monster the way his father had. He was confronting his worst nightmare, and there was nothing Yuri could possibly say to ameliorate that.

"You should go," Flynn said dully. "More Infected might be coming toward the arena. You should leave while the streets are still mostly clear."

Flynn couldn't come back to the Quarantine Zone, even for his final hours. Even if they snuck in through the tunnel, Flynn wouldn't allow himself to put everyone at risk like that. All Flynn could do was sit up here and wait to die. "I won't leave you alone."

"Don't be stupid. The longer you wait here, the more dangerous it will be to get back." He pulled out his gun and stared at it for a few seconds, then held it to Yuri. "Take it. You'll need it on the way home."

"What about you?"

Flynn snorted in a pitiful attempt at humour. "What do I need a weapon for? I'm already a dead man."

"You could… you know… prevent yourself turning." A piece of Yuri's soul ripped off and left his body along with those words.

Flynn squeezed his eyes tight, forcing out fresh tears. "I thought about that," he muttered. "But… I don't think I'm brave enough. Isn't that pathetic?" His eyes opened again. "I know what will happen. But I think… I would just sit here and put it off until it was too late. You should take the gun. You'll put it to better use, and I absolutely don't want you to be here when… when it happens."

Flynn's shoulders slumped and face slackened. He'd never looked so defeated. How could such a small bite so utterly crush a man as lively and powerful as Flynn? Yuri couldn't stand the idea of Flynn succumbing to the infection and becoming a monster like his father, but the thought of Flynn shakily, tearfully putting a gun to his own head revolted him almost as much. In both cases, he'd spend his final moments of life filled with terror.

This as all Yuri's fault. He was the one who had talked Flynn into coming, so it was his responsibility to do anything he could to help Flynn in the only way he could. He took the gun from Flynn. "Ok. I'll go."

"Thank you," Flynn whispered.

"Let me say goodbye properly." Yuri cupped the side of Flynn's face and pulled him forward. Flynn rose to his knees to meet Yuri and rested his hands on Yuri's shoulders. They were supposed to have the rest of their lives together to share a thousand more kisses, but this one would be the last. To compensate, they filled it with all the passion, all the love, and all the tenderness of those thousand kisses that had been stolen from them. In the gaps between kissing, Yuri whispered soft words of love he'd always felt too awkward to say. Every moment of love they should have had to look forward to condensed into that moment, during which Yuri struggled to comprehend that this truly was the last one.

It couldn't last forever. Yuri would have kept kissing Flynn until the moon crashed into the Earth if it would put off the infection, but Yuri knew that if they kept this up much longer, he would lose his resolve. Flynn's eyes were closed as their noses bumped and lips locks. Yuri's hand slid down Flynn's chest and hip, then left his body completely. If Flynn noticed, he made no sign. Yuri's fingers curled around the cold metal of the gun.

Yuri kept the kiss going. The gun trembled in Yuri's hand mere centimetres from Flynn's temple. Flynn was still lost in their passion, tears trickling from closed eyes over flushed cheeks. In this moment, Flynn was comfortable and loved. Yuri couldn't think of a better final moment he could give to Flynn.

Yuri's lips slipped away from Flynn's to breathe, "I love you." He pulled the trigger.

For the rest of his life, Yuri could never be sure if the flash of emotion when Flynn's eyes snapped open had been gratitude, or betrayal.


End file.
